Book Review: Holly by Stephen King
Published September, 2023
Holly Gibney is the first realistic, multidimensional, flawed and unsexualized female protagonist that Stephen King has ever written, with the possible exception of Trisha McFarland in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (published in 1999), whom I’m not sure should really be counted since Trisha was 9 years old and King always writes children very well. I know; it’s a pretty bold claim. I admittedly haven’t read every Stephen King novel — who could keep up with his prolific releases? — but if you can think of a more relatable female protagonist in his catalogue, I’d like to hear about her.
Making her debut in the Bill Hodges detective trilogy that began with Mr. Mercedes (published in 2014), Holly stole the show and held her own with retired-detectives-turned-private-investigators, psychopathic serial killers, and supernatural monsters, no small feat given the way this obviously neurodivergent woman in her mid forties was repeatedly constrained by her overbearing mother and, truly, everyone in her life. It was hard not to fall in love with her once she came into her own, and fans rejoiced when she reemerged about halfway through 2018’s The Outsider, once again showing the Old Boys’ club of investigators how it’s done. I recommend starting with The Outsider if you are looking for a way in to this particular world. It was…
